Far-right Austrian leader visits Israel's Holocaust memorial

JERUSALEM, April 12 (Reuters) - The leader of Austria's
far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, visited the
Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Tuesday, laying a
wreath under the engraved names of towns in Austria from where
Jews were expelled by the Nazis.

He said anti-Semitism had no place in his party and urged a
common front against Islamists.

Strache's party, which last year expelled a member of its
parliamentary group for anti-Semitic comments, has sought to
redress the worst of its past while retaining popular support
with outspoken opposition to Muslim migration.

During his visit, Strache kept a Fedora hat firmly on his
head as a sign of respect and declined to answer questions. But
afterwards he explained why he was visiting Yad Vashem's Valley
of the Communities, where the names of 5,000 towns and cities
where Jews once lived are listed on monumental stone walls.

"For us, it's important to act against anti-Semitism and
also against Islamism and terrorism and to discuss the issues we
have in common," he told Reuters by telephone. "Anti-Semitism
often emerges anew from Islamism and from the left."

The Israeli foreign ministry said it had nothing to do with
Strache's visit and the Austrian embassy in Tel Aviv also said
it was not involved. Strache said he was invited by Likud, the
right-wing party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We have a lot in common," Strache said of Likud. "I always
say, if one defines the Judeo-Christian West, then Israel
represents a kind of border. If Israel fails, Europe fails. And
if Europe fails, Israel fails."

A spokesman for Likud was not immediately available to
comment.

RISING FORCE

Strache, 46, is a rising political force in Austria, with
the Freedom Party winning 20 percent of the vote in the last
elections in 2013. In some recent polls its support has been put
at as much as 30 percent.

Strache, who failed in a bid to become mayor of Vienna last
year, has himself been accused of anti-Semitism in the past.

In 2012, he was vilified over a cartoon posted on his
Facebook page that depicted a fat banker with a hooked nose and
six-pointed star buttons on his sleeve. The banker was gorging
himself at the expense of a thin man representing "the people".

Austrian President Heinz Fischer called it "the low point of
political culture which deserves to be universally and roundly
condemned". Strache denied being anti-Semitic and has since
repeatedly denounced anti-Semitism.

The memorial Strache visited on Tuesday is a poignant
reminder of the impact of persecution on a race. Asked what
thoughts that prompted about the displacement of Muslims, he
said the two could not be compared.

"Every time people are driven away from their homes it's
dramatic," he said, mentioning the threat from Islamic State in
Syria and Iraq. "All of us in the western-liberal,
Judeo-Christian community with common values must stand up
against this inhumanity."
(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in Vienna; Editing by
Jeremy Gaunt.)